A magic dwells in each beginning... I always think of this line by Hermann Hesse, a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter, when I find myself roaming through nature at the crack of dawn with all my senses attuned to the awakening of another day – and this morning is no exception.

I’m sitting here “armed” with my new spotting scope, the ZEISS Conquest Gavia, in the green wooded area known as the “Wiesenkanzel”, one of my familiar hunting grounds. A ribbon of soft pink light on the horizon heralds the approaching dawn. Silence reigns, and the only sound is the gentle gurgling of the Amelungsbach creek, beneath where I’m sitting.